Postal III Cut/Unfinished Content
This page covers what is known about the Postal III's unused/unfinished content. Most of this information comes from Russian sites, early screenshots and gameplay footage, and old interviews. All this info was found by Lazlo and Oddheads. General *Postal III was intended to be released on the Xbox 360 in 2012, however RWS were unable to find a publisher for it, so it never came to pass. *The game was also intended for release on Mac. This was still planned up until very early 2012, where for whatever reason the Mac port was shelved. *For whatever reason, Akella decided not to have Postal III rated by the ESRB. If RWS hadn’t stepped in and sent Steam keys to fans who purchased it, this would have resulted in the game only being available in Russia. Ultimately, however, the game was released on Steam in 2012. Gameplay *Multiplayer was intended to be a gamemode. The multiplayer aspect was meant to be given as much attention as the single player aspect. For whatever reason, it was dropped, though Jon Merchant is still credited as its lead designer, as is Mike Jaret credited as the announcer. RWS member Tim Wambolt also created the multiplayer maps. (Source: Postal III Manual, RWS Site) As of 2010, 8 Player Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and Snatch modes were said to have been implemented, with "more to be announced soon". *Jumping and crouching at will was possible, before they were relegated to cover moves, akin to Gears of War. Jumping over smaller objects, such as cardboard boxes and, absurdly, a street curb, is still possible, however. Even after the cover system was implemented, jumping normally was still possible up until early 2010. *The HUD was originally more in line with the HUD style used in Half-Life 2 (health in numbers on the left, ammo on the right). This HUD was carried on up until 2011, where it was dropped for unknown reasons and replaced with a circular health bar with the ammo counter beside it, both in the bottom right corner. (Source: early Postal III footage and images) Story *In the manual, the Ecotologists are described as “hellbent on saving Gaia from the dirty humans.” The only references to this in the actual game are an unused prompt stating “Gaia commands you to escort Al to safety!”, and male Ecotologists will say “Okay, you’re clearly not a friend of Gaia anymore” whenever the player attacks them if they were initially friendly. *There was a cut mission involving Lloyd Kaufman and his Tromaplex. The Tromaplex is still present in-game as a static building, however. Characters *The Postal Dude’s appearance went under significant changes. In earlier builds of the game, he utilised a model created by RWS member Josh Leichliter, the designer of the character models for POSTAL 2. This model more closely resembled his appearance in POSTAL 2. The model contained 5,324 polygons. Early on in 2010, however, Akella scrapped the model entirely, and instead created a more realistic model. His original model, however, can still be found in Postal III’s files, minus the lower half of his trenchcoat. High quality images of this model are available on Leichliter's DeviantArt page. Reportedly, Leichlilter was outraged when Akella scrapped his model. **Eventually, in 2017, the model was rediscovered. *Leichliter also designed the models for Krotchy and Motorhead the Helper Monkey; unlike his model of the Postal Dude, however, the monkey is used in the final game, with minor, if any, alterations. The Krotchy model, on the other hand, was changed considerably to look more phallic, though the model’s textures remain unchanged. (Source: Leichlilter’s DeviantArt page) *Lloyd Kaufman, voiced by Mike Jaret, would have appeared. Lloyd Kaufman was initially voiced by himself, as was Uwe Boll. Due to an unspecified audio error, these voices were re-recorded by RWS members, with Joe Cerniglia, the game’s artist, voicing Boll. *Voice lines for Ron Jeremy and Randy Jones recorded by Mike Jaret can still be found in the game’s files, as well as voice lines for Jen Walcott recorded by Erin Van Bebber, the voice actor for the elderly female pedestrians and the Hockey Moms. Due to a scripting error, Van Bebber's lines play in the finished game in place of Walcott's. *Gary Coleman was intended to be in the game, wandering the streets of Catharsis as a deformed beast-like creature due to the nuclear destruction of Paradise. The character was removed fairly early in the development cycle. In the final game he merely appears on “Missing: Have You Seen Me?” posters. (Source: Russian websites, unused textures) *Comedian Doug Stanhope was approached earlier in development to appear in a small comedy club in the game, but due to time constraints was cut. His design was eventually adapted into Uncle Dave's appearance, as his model and textures fall under the prefix "Uncle_Doug". *Rick Hunter would have reprised his role as the Postal Dude. He left the project early in development because of personal life issues and was replaced by Corey Cruise. Hunter’s lines could still be found in the game’s files prior to the 1.12 patch, and a good chunk of them were eventually incorporated into POSTAL 2. Hunter eventually reprised his role for Paradise Lost and POSTAL Redux. *The Postal Dude would have had a unique outfit for joining the Ecotologists: his trenchocat would have been replaced with an Ecozealot T-shirt. Concept art is the only surviving evidence of it’s existence. (SOURCE: Making of Postal 3”, Postal III Concept Art) Weapons And Items *There were more grenades, specifically Tear Gas, Smoke Grenades and C4. *Also cut were the Scissors and the Dead Pigeons. The Dead Pigeons could be thrown like darts to contract the Avian Flu upon their victims. (Source: RWS Site, Unused weapon icons as well as unused models and textures for the dead pigeons) *Another planned weapon was the Chain Scythe, which could be thrown to drag victims to their demise. This was seemingly scrapped early on, given that there’s no icon for it in the files. The only evidence of their existence is in the artwork for the game, as well as it once appearing on the official Postal III website, along with all the other scrapped weapons. *Pizza would have returned as a consumable, though the amount of health the player would have regained upon eating it is unknown. (source: Unused weapon icons, unused script for it) *The Sniper Rifle would have also been a weapon. (Source: Unused weapon icons) *The M-Gun was originally an M60, but was replaced with an M249 sometime before the game’s release in 2011. The M60’s textures and sounds can still be found in the game files, suggesting it was removed fairly late in the development cycle. *The M-Gun/M60 would have had at least 100 rounds in a magazine, and 100 in reserve initially. This was changed at an unknown point, most likely after 2010. In the final game, the M-Gun still has 100 rounds, however, by default, it contains no reserve ammo. **In earlier builds of the game, the Pistol was a Desert Eagle in place of an HP Browning, using its world model from Counter-Strike. It also contained a much more reasonable 7 rounds in a clip, rather than 14. Maps *In the files, there is a model for the interior of the Dude’s trailer (main_menu_trailer.mdl) presumably intended for use in the original main menu. *One of the buildings in hub_3 is the RWS office (source: P3 concept art); however since the sign is not present in the actual map, it just looks like a regular building. *Running With Scissors were meant to once again be killable characters in the game. *The Ecozealots’ Compound originally had much more grassland, and would have included a river and a waterfall. This was changed due to it causing crashes and other technical issues. *Daveland’s levels would have occurred in the early morning, instead of at night. *The abundance of player spawns in the maps' VMF file suggest they were also intended to be multiplayer maps. *The caves map was completely different at one point, featuring a waterfall and being much more open-ended. (source: Postal E3 2009 vid) Missions *As stated above, there would have been a mission involving Lloyd Kaufman and his Tromaplex. **The Krotchy Meal Toy Delivery mission originally allowed you to freely walk to Talibannagin’s before having to kill Hell’s A-Holes. (Source: Postal 3 mission scripts) ***The Cat Roundup mission originally allowed you to freely walk to the Ecotologist before having to start collecting cats. (source: Postal 3 E3 2010 vid) *You originally only had to collect 10 cats rather than 15. (source: Postal 3 E3 2010 footage) External Links * Postal III page at RWS containing numerous concept art * Google Docs of Postal III information Category:Postal III